


Some Good Scottish Ale

by MarisaKateBella



Series: Why Does No One Think About the Aftermath? [2]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Aftermath, Friendship, Gen, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-22 22:55:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarisaKateBella/pseuds/MarisaKateBella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scotty offers his unique coping techniques.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Good Scottish Ale

**Author's Note:**

> So here's another installment...what do we think?

“Cadet Kirk, you will remain Acting Captain of the USS Enterprise until it docks at Starbase 1. Anything further gentlemen?” Admiral Archer leaned away from the view screen and surveyed the blue-eyed boy and the grey-haired man in front of him.

“Thank you, Admiral, nothing more.” Pike said and Jim nodded in acceptance.

“We expect you within four days, I’m sorry no one can help assist you home, but you understand with the damage—“ he waves his hand awkwardly in the air, at a loss for what to say. All three men grimace, lost in their own thoughts for a moment. “We look forward to your safe return. Archer out.”

Pike runs a tired hand through his hair when the screen blackens and Jim lets out a low whistle, leaning back in his chair next to Pike’s biobed. They are sitting side by side in the Medbay, all stark walls and cleanliness and it makes Jim’s flesh crawl. “I don’t know how you do it,” he comments turning towards the older man. Pike arches an eyebrow.

“Do what?” he asks, his voice amused.

“Stay here all day.”

“You know, Jim, I don’t actually want to, I’d much rather be running _my_ ship, but there’s this funny thing called temporary paralysis caused by a pincher bug sucking on your cerebral cortex for a several hours.” He doesn’t mean it seriously but it sobers Jim up pretty quickly.

“Sorry sir, I didn’t mean—“

“Nothing to apologize for Jim, we all know about your aversion to the sickbay. It’s a wonder you and Dr. McCoy manage to be friends.”

Jim smiles. “Well, that could’ve gone a lot worse, right?” He perks up again and gestures to view screen now pushed to the side of Pike’s bed, out of the way.

“Jim, we’re going to be stuck in space with no warp drive for the next four days, floating aimlessly towards Earth. That wasn’t even the real debriefing; they just wanted to make sure everything was still running up to Starfleet protocol.” He gives Jim another eyebrow.

“The Enterprise is running perfectly, Captian.”

Pike’s eyebrow rises even further at the statement.

Jim clears his throat. “You know, minus the lack of warp drive, the cracked hull, and the partially exploded Medbay.” Jim stands to leave and claps Pike once on the shoulder, “I’ll come by later Captain.”

“Alright, Jim. Take it easy.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jim waves and with a sunny smile exits Pike’s private room towards the back of the Medbay. He pokes his head into the makeshift office Bones has set up for himself in one of the roomier med-cabinets. “Bones!”

The brown head currently bent over a PADD looks up with Jim’s favorite scowl plastered on his face. It’s the special one, just for Jim, that really means hey-good-to-see-you, instead of the: “What do you want, kid? Can’t you see I’m busy?” that actually issues from Bones’ mouth.

Jim entered the room and smiles when he sees Bones switch off his PADD. “Don’t you wanna know how the debrief went?”

“No,” Bones snaps.

Jim smiles and tells him anyway, because he can see straight through his best friend and knows that it’d kill him not to know, even though technically the whole thing is top secret Starfleet protocol. “I’m still acting Captain, even though I don’t think Archer is real happy with the way things were handled and that’s with the fact that Pike and I decided to omit the part where I almost got choked to death in front of the bridge crew.”

Bones rolls his eyes, just like Jim knew he would. “Dammit, Jim. This isn’t a fucking picnic. People died. A lot of ‘em, a whole goddamn planet for fuck’s sake. Your sunny persona ain’t fooling anyone, kid. So cut it the fuck out right now.”

Jim gaps slightly, that’s not exactly the reaction he was expecting. Instead of answering he comes around to lean against Bones’ desk, so that he can look down at the older man. He claps a hand on his shoulder and squeezes once. Bones drops his head into his hands and sighs loudly through his nose. Jim rubs a circle on his shoulder with his thumb and then removes his hand, crossing his arms over his chest. “I know Bones, trust me, I do.” He remembers the emotional backlash from the mind-meld with Old Spock and his own turmoil of watching half a planet’s population destroyed and everyone else starving with his own two eyes, but let’s not bring up that mess right now…and if anyone really understands, he does, but Bones doesn’t need a reminder that Jim really gets it. At least, not right this second. “I’m not taking this lightly, trust me. But I can’t fall a part either, Bones. You know that. What would happen if I had a complete break down? Someone’s got to keep the crew together. I know everyone is running on low fuel at the moment, but we’ll be able to rest and grieve when we get back planetside.”

Bones shakes his head and looks up, Jim can see the pain in those hazel eyes and he knows this whole thing has been killing Bones, probably as much as anyone. The guy always had too much empathy for one person; it couldn’t be healthy to always be worrying about everyone else. Maybe it was a parent thing. Than again, Jim knew plenty of parents that didn’t give much of a rat’s ass about anyone but themselves; everyone else could go fuck off, thank you very much. “It’s not going to be rainbows and unicorns planetside, Jim. God, we were the only ship to survive the initial attack on Vulcan. We’re carrying the entire race of Vulcans in our cargo hold. We saved Earth from the same fate. We defeated “Public Enemy of the Federation Number One.” That stuff don’t just go away Jim, there’s gonna be press and debriefs and hell, probably magazine covers. And you know who’s gonna be on the face of all that? You and Spock. God, they’re probably gonna make you do one of those stupid photoshoots where you both have to hold puppies or something.”

“I like puppies.”

Bones gives him a quelling look that he’s pretty sure could split him in two if he had enough energy for it. “Shut up, kid. This is serious.”

“I know Bones,” Jim sighs. “Make sure you get some sleep, alright?” He claps Bones on the shoulder, who grunts in reply, and then turns on his heel and heads out of Medbay. Once he’s out in the corridor he takes a moment to lean against the wall and close his eyes, running a hand through his thick hair. He wonders if he should just go back to the bridge for a bit, he doesn’t really have anything else to do. As he stands awkwardly in the hallway several people walk by, most of them giving him concerned looks since he’s pretty sure he seems like he has no idea what the fuck he’s doing. Which he doesn’t, but that’s not really the point. He pulls subconsciously on the sleeves of his black shirt and then straightens his back and nods his head at a passing ensign, who nearly walks into a wall she’s so startled. He smirks a bit at that and then decides he could just wander around till he thinks of something to do.

So far his only experience on board a real starship has been nonstop action; he hasn’t even really had time to think about what he would do in his spare time. There are the rec rooms but for some reason he doesn’t feel like milling around with a bunch of people he barely knows. He wished, in that moment, that Bones was off-shift or Spock even, maybe Uhura, and Sulu seemed pretty cool. Unfortunately they were all up on the bridge, in a weird scheduling conflict that kept Jim away from the rest of the main bridge crew temporarily, a blip which was caused by the ship’s clock going pretty wonky after the black hole incident. They’d all be back on their normal times next Alpha schedule but for now; Jim was at a loss of what to do.

So he did what he always did when he was bored and couldn’t find anything to occupy his time for the better. He decided to tinker. A new skip in his step that was caused by a direct purpose propelled him towards the nearest turbolift. “Deck 16,” he ordered the computer and then twiddled his fingers behind his back as he listened to the gentle hum of the lift. It was only moments before he stepped out onto the black deck of the secondary engineering, the steam coming from a few of the engine parts had him immediately rolling up the sleeves of his black shirt.

Down here it was a bit of a blessing that he wasn’t wearing the Command-gold. It was easy to weave in between the darker parts of the Enterprise; several of the other engineers had their red-shirts off as well, wearing just their regulation black undershirts. Jim took a look around, he’d never been down to the secondary engineering deck, but he figured the main one would just get him kicked out if one of the higher officers found him. He was surprised when a steam valve went off and stumbled to the side, then laughed at himself as his heart danced around in his chest with unexpected adrenaline. As he started forward again, laughing, he did not pay attention and managed to smack his forehead on a low hanging beam.

“Dammit!” He cursed, rubbing his forehead and then shaking to try to rid himself of the ringing in his ears. “Who the fuck designed these damn things?”

“Oiy! What do you think you’re doing, coming around here and messing with the lovely lady like that? Pay attention to where you’re going, don’t they teach you anything at the Academy anymore?”

“Scotty!” Jim beamed, dropping his hand from where he was sure a giant welt was starting to sprout.

“Cap’n?” Scotty stumbled, mid-rant, to a halt as he came around the corner. “What’re you doing down here? You’re head is bleeding.”

Jim reached up to above his eyebrow and then looked at his fingers, which he promptly wiped on his pants. “Nothing to worry about. Just came down to see how our favorite lady is doing,” Jim answered fondly, patting a pipe then hissing and withdrawing his hand when it turned out the pipe was actually roaring hot.

Scotty smiled, “just so Cap’n. Well, c’mon this way. We’ll see if we can put you to work.” Jim smiled happily, following the retreating red shirt, making sure to duck around beams in the way this time. They settled into fixing some minor damage to the lower decks, hit by a blast from Nero’s ship. It was loud down in bowels of the Enterprise amidst the machinery that kept her afloat, Jim liked the near-deafening humming of the engines and the hiss of release valves, it was a kind of music to him, the rhythmic pulsing of his lady’s heart. Well, not his lady but _technicalities_ , he thought smiling to himself.

“What’s got you so cocked up and happy?” Scotty asks gruffly, looking down at Jim lying on his back from the crawl space he’d been working in.

“Nothing Scotty, it’s nothing.” Jim said, schooling his features to reflect the fact that they were running on the willpower of Scotty’s genius engineering and what Jim suspected was a lot of proverbial duct-tape (and maybe some actual duct-tape.)

Scotty crawled fully out of the small space looking more like he crawled through an old-fashioned military cross-country course instead of the inside of the ship’s wall to get a look at the wiring. Jim pulled himself up into a sitting position, looping his arms around the lower railing and putting his chin on his forearms. He crossed his legs as Scotty took a seat next to him, leaning back against the hand railing. Scotty drew out a flash from his pocket. Jim raised an amused eyebrow at him as he took a swig.

“You sure you want to be drinking on shift, in front of your superior officer?”

“ _Acting_ superior officer, if I remember correctly,” Scotty quipped and held out the flask to him. Jim took a large gulp. “I wouldnae do that if I were you, Cap’n. That’s some real Scottish ale there.”

Sure enough Jim coughed after he managed to swallow around the burning in his throat. Eyes watering, he handed the metal flask back to Scotty who laughed heartily. “God,” Jim commented and put his forehead against the cool metal of the hand railing, fiddling with the wrench he’d been using earlier.

“I don’t take back what I said about this ship being exciting,” he paused, taking another drink and handing it over to Jim, who took a more measured swallow this time. “But, I feel like my brain is right about to bleed out of my eyeballs with all the pressure buildin’ up.”

Jim gave him a look, albeit a bit cross eyed—the alcohol curling warm in his stomach. He took another two swigs, it was going down easier now, and handed it back to Scotty. “Pressure? What? Are you expecting something to explode?” Jim looked around a bit warily.

“Nothing like that, Cap’n. I meant more between the crew. Everyone feels like they’re just about ready to explode at one another, or collapse into to tears,” he grimaced, “I’ve already had to send Ensign Marks and Ensign LaRue off shift. Found them bent over in some corner, crying.”

“Oh,” Jim said and made grabby hands for the alcohol again.

“You sure you should be drinkin’ all that Cap’n?” Scotty asked, though he handed over the flask without much other fuss.

“’M off shift,” he mumbled, taking a large gulp, dribbling a bit of it down his front.

When Scotty got the now mostly empty bottle back from Jim he stared down at the lid thoughtfully. “Starfleet lost a good many men and women the past couple of days. Cannae say I knew any of them, a few where probably students of mine, but you know…I cannae really remember any of their names. Cannae tell if it’s just me trying to not remember or if I really don’t…” he took another swig while Jim hummed next to him.

“My best friend Gary Mitchell, he was on the Farragut.”

“I thought the good Doctor was your best friend?”

“My other best friend,” Jim snorted, “Gailia too, she was this girl. Orion. She was fantastic. She told me she loved me. I don’t think she meant it though.”

Scotty nodded quietly and handed the flask. Jim took a sip, looked thoughtfully down at his fingers, felt the warmth building up in his throat that had nothing to do with the alcohol, and took another sip. “I didn’t make friends easily back at the Academy. Pretty sure everyone was too impressed by my obvious mental and physical superiority.” Scotty huffed a laugh along with him, though for both men it was pretty half-hearted. “But the ones I did make, and some of my other classmates…man they were some great minds. This one guy, Max, he was pretty much the best pilot ever.” Jim face scrunched up, “well, besides Sulu of course.”

“Of course,” Scotty half-smiled.

“One time, we were doing a training exercise ‘round Mars, this guy…what was his name? Paul, or Joe, or something normal like that…anyway, he spilt coffee on some of the controls, shorted out the whole automated system for orbiting we were supposed to be using. But no problem, Max just over-rided the autopilot and took over. Did the orbit perfectly without anything to go by but the gravity pull of the planet. The instructor didn’t even know anything was wrong. Saved the other guy’s grade and all of our lives, probably. Would’ve sucked to go out in a fiery blaze of glory on _Mars_.”

“So you wouldnae be opposed to a fiery blaze of glory on another planet?” Scotty asked.

“Nah, that’s kind of the way I’ve planned to go out all along.” Jim realized what he said a moment after it slipped from his pleasantly numb feeling lips. “Don’t…tell anyone…I said that.”

“’Course not, Cap’n.”

They shared a firm nod and then a few more drinks, until Jim really couldn’t see very straight at all and it required lots of coaxing from Scotty to even get him to get up off the ground. Jim slung a friendly arm around Scotty’s shoulder as they walked, his feet getting tangled under him; Scotty managed to hold them both up, although his head was buzzing pleasantly. “You know, Scotty? I’m glad I go marooned on that godforsaken icicle.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, because I stumbled upon the best goddamn engineer I could want on my ship.”

“I thought you were just the Acting Cap’n, Cap’n.”

“Technicalities,” Jim huffed.

They made it to the turbolift without incident, it was a blessing that Scotty was already so familiar with the Enterprise’s many mazes in her belly, he managed to guide the intoxicated captain away from busy places of work, they avoided coming up on anyone at all as they made their way to the lift. Once inside, Scotty directed the computer to Deck 7.

“But my floor—deck—and room—quarters—thing, is on Deck 5…”

“I know, Cap’n,” Scotty’s voice was just this side of smug.

“No, no, no,” Jim pulled himself away from Scotty’s grip around his waist.

“We gotta get that cut looked at Cap’n. It would be irresponsible for me to let you go anywhere without at least a tetanus booster.”

“This ship can’t have that kind of rust already,” Jim protested feeling acutely betrayed. “Just take me to my room, I promise I’ll clean it…the cut, not my room…but I could do that too.”

“Cap’n, it’d be irresponsible of me.” Scotty said, smiling outright now as he grabbed Jim’s arm from where he’d been huddled against the farthest corner from the lift’s doors. The doors opened onto the dimed hallway, it was evening by ship’s standards. Jim went forwards grudgingly, his limbs feeling like nothing more than wet noodles. Every step felt like he was being led to his execution. The doors to Medbay opened.

“Scotty, what are you—Jim.”

Jim winced. “Hey, Bones. Scotty and I—“

“I’ll deal with you later,” Jim heard Bones growl at Scotty.

“Sir, I can promise you I didn’t enable him in any—“

“Liar, liar pants on fire,” Jim mumbled, lifting his head in just enough time to see Bones give Scotty his patent I’m-coming-after-you-next look. Poor Scotty didn’t know that look and just smiled and gave Bones the thumbs up as he turned to leave.

“Jim,” Bones gripped Jim’s forearm.

“Ouch, Bones. That hurts.”

“Yeah, well, it’s good for you.”

“’s not.”

“I’m a doctor, I say it is.”

“Horrible doctor, really.”

“Sit down.” Bones forced him onto the biobed.

“Why you gotta be so mean?” Jim did not whine. At all. There was no whining in that statement, whatsoever.

“You are such an infant. Don’t you want to be a captain someday?” Bones asked before unceremoniously jamming a hypospray into Jim’s neck.

“Yes—FUCK, what was that for?” Maybe there was a little bit of whining that time.

“For being an absolute moron.”

“Takes one to know one.”

Bones answered with another jab to the neck.

“Stop, my head hurts.”

“Is that because of the massive gash on your forehead or the substantial amount of alcohol you consumed?”

“It’s not a massive gash.”

Bones put a warm cloth over the dried blood around Jim’s eye.

“For being so angry you’re pretty gentle,” Jim commented, leaning on Bones as he dabbed at his forehead, nosing his way towards his neck so that his head rested just below Bones’ chin. Bones dragged his hand through Jim’s hair and then down his back.

“You can’t go around getting plastered, Jim. It’s not a good way to deal with all this.”

“Says the man I met drinking to forget the fact he’s afraid of flying.”

“Kid.”

“Bones.”

Jim heard Bones sigh in frustration, but the hand on his back was still warm and comforting and Bones was really a very comfortable pillow... “Don’t go falling asleep on me now, alright?”

“Whatever Bones, ‘m tired.”

“I know, kid, I know.”

And if Bones had to leave his shift a bit early to guide Jim to his quarters, then that wasn’t against protocol. And when Jim refused to let go of Bones’ shirt and Bones wound up climbing into bed next to Jim, carding a hand through his hair and letting himself be used as a human pillow. That wasn’t against protocol either, not really. Jim was breathing deeply, probably already in a drunken stupor.

“Can’t keep doing this,” Bones said more to himself than Jim, “not healthy.”

Jim’s response was to throw a leg over Bones’ waist and pull him closer, snuggling his face into Bones’ chest. “Love you, Bones.” He murmured sleepily.

Bones’ hand stilled in his hair, and Jim had to nudge against it to get it to move again. “Love you too, Jim.” Bones mumbled, sighing through his nose and closing his eyes.


End file.
